Macro Photography

Taking close-up pictures of small things is called "macro photography." I have no idea why. Perhaps because the small things in macro photography are generally larger than the things you are taking pictures of when doing "micro photography". If you really want to be pedantic then you should say you are doing "photomacrography".

What Kind of Camera

Point and shoot digital cameras can have remarkable macro capabilities, but for best results you want a single-lens reflex camera. These allow you to attach special-purpose macro lenses and show you in a bright optical viewfinder what you will get on the sensor.
A typical setup might be a Canon Digital Rebel XTi  with a Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro USM . This lens is designed for the small-sensor Canon cameras and gives a working distance equivalent to 100mm on a full-frame photo camera. The lens is specified to focus down to "1:1" or "life size". This means that the smallest object you can photograph that will extend to the corners of the final digital photo will be the same size as the sensor inside the Canon Rebel camera, 15x22mm. A professional photographer might use Canon EOS 5D  and a lens designed for full Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM. Confusingly, this lens is also specified to focus down to "1:1", but this time the sensor is 24x36mm in size, the old 35mm film standard. So you can't take a photo of something quite as small as with the cheaper equipment.
In the film world, the 35mm photo camera systems had comprehensive range of macro lenses and accessories and some medium format systems, such as the Rollei 6008 would have at least a few lenses and extension tubes. Only the extremely patient ever did macro photography with a 4x5 inch view photo camera.

Close-Up Lenses

Your eyes don't focus so great on really small things either. Do you try to pull your cornea a foot away from your retina? No. You stick a magnifying glass in front of your cornea. You can do the same thing for your normal lens. Unlike your cornea, it even has convenient threads for attaching a magnifying glass. The magnifying glass screws into the same place where a filter would go.



Macro Lenses

The best macro lenses are the latest autofocus mount models made by Canon and Nikon, typically in focal lengths ranging from 50 to 200mm. Each lens will focus continuously from infinity to 1:1. You can shoot the moon and capture the bear claw without stopping to change lenses or screw in filters. How do these lenses work? Do they just have a much longer helical than the 50mm normal lens? Yes and no.

 

Macro Zoom Lenses

Macro zoom lenses are not macro lenses. They don't allow significantly greater magnification than a 30mm or 50mm normal lens and they deliver low quality.


Exposure

Unless you are using close-up lenses, when doing any kind of macro work, you always have to consider the effective f-stop. Even if you are using the SLR body's built-in meter, which will correct automatically for light loss, you can't turn off your brain. Why not? Because the effective aperture affects picture quality.
Taking pictures through a pinhole results in tremendous depth of field but very low sharpness due to diffraction. This is why lenses for a 35mm film camera stop at f/22 and don't go to f/45 or f/64. Large format camera lenses provide these smaller apertures for two reasons: (1) the lenses are longer (f/64 on a 210mm lens is not all that small a hole); (2) the negative won't be enlarged very much.
If you're at 1:1 and have selected f/22 on the macro lens barrel, you need to look at the lens markings and/or the close-up exposure dial in the Kodak Professional Photoguide to learn that your effective aperture is f/45.
If you're using a handheld meter, you absolutely must use these corrections (e.g., meter says f/22 but you're focussed down to 1:1 so you set f/11 on the lens barrel).

Lighting

A good quick and dirty lighting technique is to use a through-the-lens (TTL) metered flash with a dedicated extension cord). A modern handheld flash is extremely powerful when used a few inches from a macro subject. That lets you stop down to f/16 and smaller for good depth of field. You can hold the flash to one side of the subject and have an assistant hold a white piece of paper on the other side to serve as a reflector. If you want a softer light, you will have enough power in the flash to use almost any kind of diffusion material. The TTL meter in the camera will turn the flash off when enough light has reached the sensor.
Lighting is the most important and creative part of any kind of photography.

Focus

With a depth of field of around one millimeter for precise macro work, camera positioning and focus become critical. If you have a good tripod and head, you'll find that you have at least 10 controls to adjust. Each of them will move the camera. None of them will move the camera along the axis that you care about.
That's why people buy macro focusing rails, e.g., Adorama Macro Focusing Rail . These are little rack and pinions capable of moving the entire camera/lens assembly forward and back. You use the tripod to roughly position the camera/lens and then the macro rail to do fine positioning.
The photos below are snapshots from the garden of the Getty Center. They were taken with a fancy Canon EF 180mm f3.5L Macro USM , but without a tripod.

Macro Photo Gallery

 information from photo.net

Night Photography

Equipment Required

 I recommend following equipment to use.

• Digital camera
• Tripod
• Remote shutter release
• Something to do while exposing your shot

Now let’s get down to business. First, set your tripod up at the desired height, to save you any trouble later on make sure your tripod is level. You will thank me. Now, mount the camera on the tripod making sure it’s secure.

Setting Up Your Shot

 

Switch your photo camera to manual. OK, you’ve got this far it’s going good, time to set up the shot. Don’t bother composing your shot just yet as we have to sort some other things out first. Set your photo camera to auto-focus or AF. This may not work depending on the conditions but most of the time it will work just fine. Zoom in all the way and find a light source or light area that is the same distance away as the subject you want in focus, press the shutter half way down. Once the photo camera has focused on the light source or light area zoom all the way out  and make sure, without touching the shutter or the focus ring switch back to manual focus. Be sure you’re not touching the focus ring when you compose.
Now you have the camera focused you can proceed to compose the shot. This is something that no tutorial can tell you how to do, this is in the eye of the photographer. Be creative and show off your creative eye.

Tip: Wide angles create a bigger impact than longer focal lengths.

 

Setting The Correct Exposure

 

You’re almost there, the next major part is getting the exposure right, this is easy if you know how. The best way to expose your shot manually is to use your photo camera’s built in light meter as a rough guide, but not as a precise judge. When you first start you will need to follow it tightly but as you gain more and more experience you won’t need the meter at all.
Change the photo camera to AV mode(Aperture priority) Now, set the ISO to 1600. As a rough guide I recommend you stop down the aperture to f/8 to achieve maximum sharpness when using the Canon 18-55mm kit lens but you may need to keep it at f/3.5 depending on the conditions. Now, press the shutter half way and you will see the light meter, it’s a line with a small arrow, this will move around as you change the aperture. Adjust aperture accordingly so it makes the line stay in the middle. Once it is in the middle, press the shutter down half way. The photo camera will give you the shutter speed that you require, make sure you remember this number as you will need it to work out how long your final exposure will be.
For this next part you may need a calculator, depending on how good your mental arithmetic is. Now we need to calculate how long we need to keep the shutter open for. As an example we will say the photo camera gave you a shutter speed of 10 seconds when we used the light meter, keep this number in your head. Now set the ISO to 100. Take your number (In this example 10 seconds) and multiply that number by 16. This gives us 160 seconds, Divide this by 60, this gives us about 3 minutes.
Now plug in your remote shutter release, set the photo camera to BULB mode (move the shutter down past 30 seconds). Get a timing device (Phone, stop watch ) and get it prepared to begin. Press the remote shutter release and lock it on. Start the timer.
If you want to be certain of good exposure then you can round it up to the nearest minute (In our case 3 minutes). Once you have reached the target time, unlock the remote shutter release and wait for the photo camera to proceed with noise reduction.
The end result will be a nicely exposed picture.


Gallery Of Night Photography

information from adcuz.co.uk

Infrared Photography

Exposure setting 

All digital cameras I know measure the light through the lens. While this means that the light reaching the metering sensors is already filtered to IR only, there is still dependency on camera type: most non-SLRs use the CCD itself to evaluate the exposure, while current SLRs have dedicated metering sensors for which some of the light used for viewing is diverted.

This distinction is quite meaningful. It means that in non-SLR you can usually trust the exposure automation — as long as the metering system is capable of doing its job at very low light levels. It should be: a typical IR exposure with the R72 filter corresponds to exposure value of EV 3, while most cameras can cope with EV zero or close. Even so, however, you will be probably better off applying a negative exposure compensation, usually close to -1 EV, to avoid red channel overload, described below.

In SLRs, a separate light sensor does the metering; its sensitivity to the IR may be entirely different than that of the CCD imager (with any IR-blocking filters in front of one or the other accounted for); therefore you may have to apply a significant exposure compensation to get things right. A few test shots should be enough to establish the value appropriate for a particular camera. For example, in bright sunlight I can quite reliably shoot IR with the Olympus E-510 in the autoexposure mode, but I have to apply a +5 EV compensation.

Red channel overload. When setting the exposure compensation (SLR or not), you have to aim for a picture which will look like it is underexposed, too dark. This is because practically whole image information goes into just one of the RGB components: red, and you have to keep that component from saturation (i.e., running out of range). If your camera can display a brightness histogram for individual RGB components, make sure that the red one does not hit the upper limit. Otherwise use -1 EV or so of negative exposure compensation, adjusting this correction as you learn your camera/filter combination. 

Your exposures will be quite long: an IR filter combined with the camera's anti-IR one will let through less than 0.1% of the incoming light. A bright scene, requiring 1/500 s at F/8 in visible light will need about 1 s or longer at F/4 on most cameras. Not only this asks for using a tripod, but, if the air is not quite still, there will be a blur in the foliage, grass, water reflections, etc. This is not necessarily a bad thing, and it may add an extra feel to the image.  

Fogging

Certain cameras or lenses may exhibit some fogging, or image areas with extra exposure . This may be due to light scattered from inner surfaces of the lens, or to some peculiarities of anti-reflective lens coating which was not really designed for infrared. Sometimes the blackness of internal surfaces of the lens tube or mirror chamber may be "not black enough" in infrared.

Sometimes it happens to all cameras of a given model, sometimes — just to a particular specimen or a particular lens. Camera makers are not worried about this: very few users ever venture into the IR realm, and this is a mass market after all. There is no way to avoid this problem; once again, check an IR filter on your camera/lens combination before buying.

Note to SLR users: regardless of that effect, the image may be fogged, or otherwise affected, by the light entering through the viewfinder in spite of the raised mirror) and reaching the sensor after being scattered around the mirror chamber. To avoid that, close the eyepiece shutter before the exposure, or use the included eyepiece cover (or, at the very least, shield the eyepiece with your hand or hat). Users of non-SLR cameras, obviously, do not have to worry about this

Focusing

The focal length of your lens (and therefore the proper focus setting) depends on the wavelength. Lens makers try to keep that dependency to a minimum (achromatic lenses), but only within the visible light spectrum. A lens focused in visible light will be somewhat off-focus in infrared. Many film-era lenses had a separate focus marker on the barrel, to be used in infrared photography.

With autofocus, like with autoexposure, the outcome depends on the type of camera, although the difference is not as drastic. (Remember, we are talking about non-modified cameras here, where an IR filter is used on the lens.)

Non-SLR cameras have an easier job here. Autofocus is performed in the image sensor plane, by contrast detection. This means the circuitry will properly detect when the image is in focus, regardless of the light type. There may be a problem with the amount of light available for the job, but not with its kind; the AF action may be slower and less reliable, but there will be no systematic shift. If your camera is capable of autofocusing in low light down to EV 0 or not much above, you'll be just fine. Sort of.

Just in case, I would recommend taking more than one picture, every time forcing the camera to re-focus. This will increase your chances of getting at least one properly focused image.

In SLRs the AF is done by dedicated sensors behind a system of mirrors. These sensors are at the same effective distance from the lens as the imager. This should, in principle, work OK, as both the AF sensors and the imager are getting infrared light only. There may be, however, some inaccuracy caused by the fact that both sensors are receiving somewhat different kind of infrared (remember the anti-IR filter on top of the imager!), so both focus planes will be shifted with respect to each other: what the AF sensor will see as in focus, the imager may see somewhat out-of-focus.

The difference is not as large as the one between visible and IR light, so we just have to live with this (IR-adapted cameras, without a filter on the lens, face much more of a problem here). Just in case, stepping the lens down for more depth of field, is a reasonable precaution.

Some SLRs with the Live View feature offer an additional AF-by-imager mode. In that case, the system works exactly as in a non-SLR camera, just fine — as long as the camera does not do the final focusing, just before opening the shutter, using the "regular" AF sensors.

Manual focusing by scale is not really useful here, although with a bit of patience you may find the right setting for a given lens used for landscape shooting. If in doubt, try setting focus a little closer than the actual subject distance: at the equivalent focal length of 50 mm use about 4-5 m instead of infinity — but this actually depends on the particular lens.

Depth of field may, to a large extent, help masking the lack of proper focus. In case of problems, try to use wide zoom settings and shoot in aperture priority at F/8 or so; this may help.

You can run but you can't hide: at small apertures (large F-numbers) the image resolution is negatively affected by diffraction effects. This effect is more visible (i.e., starts at larger apertures) in infrared. Its magnitude depends on the ratio of the (absolute) aperture size to the average wavelength of light used for the image. That wavelength is about 50% more for near-infrared than for visible light (850 nm or so versus 550 nm; remember that IR wavelength is limited by the anti-IR filter), hence the difference in usable apertures will be about one F-stop, maybe a bit more. This means that if you could  use apertures up to F/11 in visible light (with a given lens), in infrared the limit will be F/8 or F/7. Still, it is often easier to live with diffraction than with an out-of-focus image.

While smaller imagers suffer from this at lower F-numbers, they also show more depth of field; both effects exactly compensate each other. 

Infrared Photo gallery

information from wrotniak.net

Celebration Of High-Speed Photography

A digital camera, some fast-moving subject, and a bit of knowledge about how to take the best pictures of moving subjects will launch you on the road to some of the most interesting photographs you’ve ever taken. Although some blurring can be effective in communicating a sense of high-speed motion, some photographers want the subject to be frozen in time to get some pretty special photographic effects.

High Speed Photography at Home

How totake high speed photos You can use this technique to take picture of exploding things like tomatoes, watter balloons, watermelons, or even you Canon photo camera as you smash it against a wall for not understanding the menus (Sorry, could not resist...)
 

Freezing fast motion (AKA High Speed Photography), can give some pretty special photographic effects. High Speed Photography is used in physics, health research, sports and more. This guide describes how to capture super fast movements using ordinary camera gear and a little home made electronics. I will describes the setup I used the problems I encountered and what I did to solve or work around them.

Capturing such images introduces a lot of challenges. How does one handle timing with exposures times

faster than 1/6000 second!?
We have to handle shutter lag, synchronize the flash and time the exposure to just the right moment.

But the shutter lag of any normal photo camera is so long that it will be all most impossible to time the exposures. And how do you synchronize the flash with an exposure time of less than 1/6000 second?
To work around the problems with shutter lag and flash synchronization, the exposure is done in a completely dark room. This way the shutter can opened without actually getting an exposure. The exposure time set on the photo camera just has to be long enough for the action to happen while the shutter is still open. Because the room is dark, the long exposure time will not have any effect on the final output (this is because no light enters the lens to hit the sensor / film)

To actually get an "exposure", a flash is fired. The flash light duration will now become the actual

exposure time.
SO now we need to see how long does it takes the flash to fire. It turns out that the output power of the flash, actually affects the duration of the light, so to get exposure times. If you need exposure faster than 1/6000 seconds, the output needs to be reduced.
Now we only need to synchronize the flash with the action we want to capture.
This can be done in several ways. For example synchronizing with a balloon puncture, can be done via sound. Impact-actions, like a BB Soft air gun pellets, can be triggered with a mechanical switch, like in the picture below. When the pellet hits the cd-cover it's pushed on to the switch, which then triggers the flash.
Here is my High Speed Photography setup and work flow (Balloon Shot).

 

The Gear:

• Balloon (OK - we are going to nuke this one, so don't use your favorite)
• Digicam
• Tripod
• Sigma Flash
• Home made sound trigger (more info). If you do not have an optical slave you can use the Universal Sound Slave Circuit
• Needle (or BB-gun)
• Backdrop (I use a black Bristol sheet)

The Setup

First step is to set-up the scene. The black Bristol sheet is used as backdrop. The balloon, flash, microphone

and camera are placed like in to image below

Gear settings:

• Flash: optical slave and 1/16 output power.
• Camera: Exposure time: 1-2 sec. ISO 100-200 Aperture F 11-16 manual focus.
• Microphone: The distance between the balloon and microphone, is used for synchronization. 50-70cm is good for balloon punctures :-)

Next step is framing and focusing:

While trying to stay within the best performance on the lens, I either zoom or move the tripod, until I have the desired framing. Focus can be obtained either automatic or manual, but do remember to switch to manual to lock focus, otherwise the camera will try to focus when the lights are switched off.

Now it's time to test the setup and lightning. All lights are switched off and the shutter is set to bulb.

To fire the flash I just clap my hands. Then I review the image on the camera, checking for exposure, framing, focus and DOF.
To get the correct amount of light / exposure, one can Increase or decrease:

- the strobe distance to the balloon

- the output power of the flash

- the aperture on the  photo camera

- ISO sensitivity on the photo camera
Taking the shot

The test is repeated until satisfactory result have been reached, and the real photo can be taken. This is done the same way as when testing, but instead of clapping, the balloon is punctured with a needle.
One could also just fill the balloon with water and shoot it with a BB Soft air gun :-)


Some cool High Speed Photography

information from smashingmagazine.com

Canon NOVA concept

Most photographers are pretty creative.  It takes a certain level of creativity to produce good photography.  It seems only natural, that photographers would want a camera that is both creative and useful. The Nova DSLR Camera is arguably one of the most unique photo cameras in both appearance and design.
Erin Fong designed the camera.  It looks more like a video game controller than a photo camera because the photo camera was designed with a folding handle.  This makes the photo camera particularly great for taking one-handed shots.  Although the photo camera is unique in its design, there are questions on whether or not the camera will feel comfortable in the hands of a photographer.
It is possible that the camera could provide very interesting pictures at unique angles based on the way the  photo camera can be handled.  The whole concept of the camera was to help photographers take easier photos.  The Nova DSLR Camera’s mobile photo  camera arms were designed to bring comfort to both left-handed and right-handed photographers.  Each button is located at the fingertips so that pictures can be taken while a user simultaneously locates other features.
Whether or not the Nova DSLR photo Camera will provide the flexibility and versatility that users are seeking is yet to be known.

information from sexygadgets.net

Canon Snap

Due to its small size and ring form, this miniature snapshot photo camera can be always with you. Against the trend of putting more and more functions into electronic devices, the idea for this camera was to make it as simple and easy to use as possible.The most important point for a snapshot camera is of course that you have it active the right moment. Therefore the whole electronic is put into a flexible gelring that can be easily worn on the index finger. In combination with the easy to use one button interface quick accessibility and fun taking snapshots is guarantied.

This photo camera concept was developed as contribution to the Designtope Design Awards 2006. Canon Snap, always active. 

information from atomare.com

Eye of Dragon by Jackie Chan

The Canon 550D is one hell of an affordable DSLR. And, Jackie Chan is anything other than a bone fide genius. the Jackie Chan-branded 550D being launched in China. Unfortunately,Canon Jackie Chan 550D’s Limited Edition Digital Camera is sell only 2,010 pieces, as an obvious remarks for the year 2010 released in China only. Canon 550D price at  10,000 Yuan (about £950) and they’ll never be released anywhere else in the world.

Canon China introduces the EOS 550D Jackie Chan Eye of Dragon special edition. The photo  camera body comes with gold Dragon logo of Jackie Chan, who is Canon’s spokesperson in China. The Jackie Chan kit includes a Canon EF-S 180145MM lens,  a  photo camera case, a strap and an album book.You will find a Jackie Chan’s ‘Lung’ or Dragon signature on the camera pouch, and top part of the Canon Jackie Chan 550D camera. (except the lens)

information from rmreview.com.my

Military camera - Canon OD F-1 Camera

Official model name: Canon ODF-1, officially launched in January, 1978. It has never been sold outside the main land of Japan. Total quantity produced was 2002 units. This is a limited edition  based on a revised Canon F-1body configuration. Most external parts are finished in olive drab (OD) military color. It was sold specifically in mainland Japan only. The set included a wide strap and soft case also finished in olive drab. This setup is the most complete seen so far from any sales. It looks so beautiful... Hey, this is tempting enough, I have the urge inside to ask - how much would this photo camera cost ?

Technical Specification

FORMAT: 24 x 36 mm; DIMENSIONS:
146.7 x 99.5 x 49.5 mm
WEIGHT: weighing 845 g (Body only)
LOADING: Multi-slot spool, emulsion-in winding
LENS MOUNT, COUPLING: CANON breech-lock bayonet, FD coupling
PENTAPRISM: Interchangeable prism SLR
MAG.: 0.77x w/50mm lens  

VIEWFINDER INFORMATION: Meter Needle, Following Needle, Battery Check Mark and Shutter Speeds
FIELD OF VIEW: Vertically 97%; Horizontally 97%
RANGE-FINDING AIDS: Split-image/Microprism (E) Screen standard, plus 8 other user-interchangeable screens.
SHUTTER: Mechanical, dual roller focal plane
CURTAIN: Metal blades
SHUTTER SPEEDS: B 1 2 4 8 15 30 60 125 250 500 1000 2000
BATTERY: H-D Mercury cell, 1.35V S
SELF TIMER: Mechanical, 10 sec.
SYNC: X, FP
FILM TRANSPORT: Stroke: 139°, Standoff: 30°, Short-stroke winding OK, Power winder F, Motor Drive MA, and Motor Drive Unit usable
FRAME COUNTER: Additive
MULTI-EXPOSURE: Yes, via Rewind button
REWIND: Manual crank rewind after pushing automatic resetting rewind button.
EXPOSURE MODES & METERING: TTL, CdS, center area (12%) maximum aperture match needle metering. Metering angle: 18% w/50mm lens. Range: EV 2.5 to 18 (1/4 sec., f/1.2 to l/2000, f/11) with f/1.2 lens at ISO 100.
FILM SPEED RANGE ISO (ASA): 25 to 3,200 in 1/3 stop intervals
BATTERY CHECKER: ASA100;1/2000 needle indicator
MISC. SPECS.: The OD finish is the same quality as the black finish of the normal Production unit of the F-1.

information taken from mir.com.my